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The Texas State Police During Reconstruction:A ReexaminationANN PATTON BAENZIGER*HE TEXAS STATE POLICE HAVE TRADITIONALLY BEEN REGARDED ASone of the more unsavory aspects of Radical rule; an agency whichparticipated in the worst kind of skullduggery. According to WalterPrescott Webb, "The career of the state police affords a story of officialmurder and legalized oppression."' Charles W. Ramsdell believed"some of the worst desperadoes in the state took service in the police,and under the shield of authority committed the most high-handedoutrages. . . ." William Curtis Nunn described the force as "unnec-essary . . . despotic [and] filled with a personnel of low type who insome cases, committed crimes of unnatural brutality."" Otis G. Single-tary, though less critical of the police per se, suggests that the militiaforces were created by Governor Edmund J. Davis and the Radicalsas instruments of political protection, under the pretext of concernover lawless conditions.' Reexamination of the sources suggests thatthese judgments are too harsh. While not above criticism, the StatePolice was a worthwhile agency created for a legitimate purpose. Dur-ing its brief career it accomplished much that was laudatory, and itspremature disbandment by the conservatives for political purposesleft a void which was not soon filled.The disproportionate scorn received by the force can only be under-stood in the context of the highly volatile times. Radical rule in Texas,from 1870-1873, was marked by a protracted struggle between theconservative elements that wished to regain control of state affairs andthe Radical Republicans who wished to retain their leadership. Con-servatives included virtually all Democrats, some ex-Whigs, and somemoderate Republicans. They were united, in the main, by their op-position to the Radicals, and persisted in attacking all Radical pro-*Miss Baenziger is an assistant instructor of history at Southwest Texas State College.'Walter Prescott Webb, The Texas Rangers, a Century of Frontier Defense (New York,1945), 221.2Charles W. Ramsdell, Reconstruction in Texas (New York, 1910), 302."William Curtis Nunn, "A Study of the State Police During the E. J. Davis Administra-tion" (Master's thesis, University of Texas, 1931), 192.'Otis G. Singletary, "The Texas Militia During Reconstruction," Southwestern His-torical Quarterly, LX (July, 1956), 24.